People with eating disorders often exhibit serious misconceptions about their own body image. This programme helps sufferers to improve their body image in the hope that they will also make progress with their eating disorder.

Many people occasionally suffer from a negative body self-image but, for an increasing number of people, this can turn into a more serious preoccupation. One per cent of the population will develop Body Dysmorphic Disorder (BDD), a condition characterised by severe preoccupation with a perceived physical defect. Body image problems can cause significant distress and can lead to further problems such as anxiety, eating disorders and social phobia. It has long been recognised that negative body image problems are a factor in the onset and maintenance of many eating disorders. However, they can be successfully treated with cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT). Praise for Overcoming Obsessive Compulsive Disorder and the Overcoming series: '[Overcoming Obsessive Compulsive Disorder] is an affordable and highly recommended read.' The Psychologist 'The best consumer-friendly CBT-based books...All are very thorough.' Observer

This groundbreaking two-volume handbook provides a comprehensive collection of evidence-based analyses of the causes, treatment, and prevention of eating disorders. A two-volume handbook featuring contributions from an international group of experts, and edited by two of the leading authorities on eating disorders and body image research Presents comprehensive coverage of eating disorders, including their history, etiological factors, diagnosis, assessment, prevention, and treatment Tackles controversies and previously unanswered questions in the field Includes coverage of DSM-5 and suggestions for further research at the end of each chapter 2 Volumes

Includes Obligatory Exercise Questionnaire, Teasing Assessment Scale, Body Image Anxiety Scale, and the Multidimensional Body Self-relations Questionnaire. Table 4.1 includes a listing of measures used in theassessment of size estimation accuracy and subjective aspects of body image disturbance.

Includes Obligatory Exercise Questionnaire, Teasing Assessment Scale, Body Image Anxiety Scale, and the Multidimensional Body Self-relations Questionnaire. Table 4.1 includes a listing of measures used in theassessment of size estimation accuracy and subjective aspects of body image disturbance.

Teen-aged girls hate their bodies and diet obsessively, or so we hear. News stories and reports of survey research often claim that as many as three girls in five are on a diet at any given time, and they grimly suggest that many are “at risk” for eating disorders. But how much can we believe these frightening stories? What do teenagers mean when they say they are dieting? Anthropologist Mimi Nichter spent three years interviewing middle school and high school girls—lower-middle to middle class, white, black, and Latina—about their feelings concerning appearance, their eating habits, and dieting. In Fat Talk, she tells us what the girls told her, and explores the influence of peers, family, and the media on girls’ sense of self. Letting girls speak for themselves, she gives us the human side of survey statistics. Most of the white girls in her study disliked something about their bodies and knew all too well that they did not look like the envied, hated “perfect girl.” But they did not diet so much as talk about dieting. Nichter wryly argues—in fact some of the girls as much as tell her—that “fat talk” is a kind of social ritual among friends, a way of being, or creating solidarity. It allows the girls to show that they are concerned about their weight, but it lessens the urgency to do anything about it, other than diet from breakfast to lunch. Nichter concludes that if anything, girls are watching their weight and what they eat, as well as trying to get some exercise and eat “healthfully” in a way that sounds much less disturbing than stories about the epidemic of eating disorders among American girls. Black girls, Nichter learned, escape the weight obsession and the “fat talk” that is so pervasive among white girls. The African-American girls she talked with were much more satisfied with their bodies than were the white girls. For them, beauty was a matter of projecting attitude (“’tude”) and moving with confidence and style. Fat Talk takes the reader into the lives of girls as daughters, providing insights into how parents talk to their teenagers about their changing bodies. The black girls admired their mothers’ strength; the white girls described their mothers’ own “fat talk,” their fathers’ uncomfortable teasing, and the way they and their mothers sometimes dieted together to escape the family “curse”—flabby thighs, ample hips. Moving beyond negative stereotypes of mother–daughter relationships, Nichter sensitively examines the issues and struggles that mothers face in bringing up their daughters, particularly in relation to body image, and considers how they can help their daughters move beyond rigid and stereotyped images of ideal beauty.

This book offers a step-by-step guide to mental health assessment for bariatric surgery patients. A general introduction explains the concepts of bariatric psychology and psychiatry, their relevance in contemporary bariatric surgery, and reasons to include psychologists and psychiatrists in multidisciplinary teams taking care of bariatric patients. The following four chapters address the aspects of mental health that are investigated by bariatric psychology. The psychological processes analyzed here play a major role in influencing patients’ perception of the outcomes of bariatric surgery and in determining their commitment to lifestyle changes and follow-up programs. The second part of the book includes nine chapters addressing the clinical conditions relevant to bariatric psychiatry. For each condition, the major focus is on the impact of psychopathology on bariatric surgery outcomes (weight loss, weight regain, quality of life) and the impact of surgery on its course (remission, worsening, de novo onset). Each chapter in this part includes a discussion of the diagnostic instruments (i.e., structured interviews, clinician-rated tests, and patient-rated tests) that should be used to obtain a valid assessment of the patient’s mental status. Separate chapters focus on psychiatric complications (e.g., suicide and addiction transfer) and psychological problems related to quality of life (e.g., body image dissatisfaction) that may emerge postoperatively. Data on these postsurgery conditions has been reported only recently and, therefore, no published book deals with them. The final chapter offers an overview of unsolved issues in bariatric psychology and psychiatry and reviews emerging research findings that are likely to change assessment and care of bariatric patients’ mental health in the near future. Given its scope—and its wealth of tables, diagrams, mnemonics, and key fact boxes—the book will be an invaluable reference tool for clinicians.